Evaluation question 4

Here is the evaluation of the hard/software used at various points in our project. I will first go through the hardware, and then the software.


   Hardware: Planning

   During the planning phase, the hardware we most used were CAMERAS and MACS.

   Cameras
  The cameras were used to show our proof of work, and the evidence can be seen on this very blog.  We used 2 types of camera: A camera attached to the video camera we used, and an iPhone 5s camera. We used the video camera for our proof photo, and the iPhone camera was used for the advert photo. However this caused some minor hassle when we had to upload the photo off the iPhone.  However the quality of there iPhone camera was pretty good for a phone camera, and the video camera lived up to expectation.                                              An example of the video camera we used to both film, which will be talked about later, and what we used to take the photo to show proof of progress. it was a decent camera, though some photo's came out a bit dark. 

 This is an example of the type of iPhone we used to take photo's throughout our endeavor. The camera was surprisingly good for a phone.Then the progress was recorded on a mac. The Macs were overall decent, if a little prone to bouts of freezing. The main problem was a change in controls from the windows we were more accustom to. However overall the Macs were a decent speed, and when accustomed were relatively easy to use.

      Software:

  The only real software we used at this point was Blogger. blogger is an easy to use website, and though glitchy at times was overall a pretty solid to use website. However it can be annoying trying to link other websites onto it.                                                                                                                                                    

Hardware: Filming 

 The tripod was a reliable piece of equipment, although some parts were a bit stiff at points. Overall though, very good. The camera was an integral part of filming. However, as it was not a steady cam, unless we used a tripod the footage was ridiculously shaky, meaning we was limited our potential shots as anything out of tripod range would ed up with the aforementioned shakiness. However the footage taken by the camera was overall decent, if a little low in quality at points. The camera we used for this role is the same as the camera we used to take the progress photo shown above.We also the Mac's for editing. Same as above.

Software: editing

Photoshop: We used photoshop to edit our magazine advert. However the transition between windows and macs was not smooth, and it took a while to get used to the difference  and it does show in our work. However it ran smoothly, and taught us how to use photoshop on a mac, though our lack of experience still shines through. 

Adobe premiere: This was the main tool we used for our editing. However as this was our first music video, and only have used it on 1 previous occasion we made several mistake, though we can consider this experience with relatively unused technology. 

As a summation, we used a lot of old yet familiar footage and used this as a chance to show how we've learned and improved over the last year, mainly in our editing and use of software.

             

Styles of music video

Narrative:
This kind of song tells a story, normally shown through the music video, with little focus on the singer or lip syncing. The lyrics are typically reflected in the song. A good example of this would be lady gaga's ''Bad Romance'', which follows hi-jinks of lady gaga's sexual slavery.

   Cinematic:
Cinematic videos can have no actual lip syncing from the singer and instead seek to convey a short movie. The best example for me would be lovey-dovey by Korean girl band T-ara. It is literally a short film, about the length of a tv episode.


Live:
  Live is exactly what it says on the tin. Filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Studio:
A studio music video is a singer recording themselves in a studio doing the singing.

Parody:
A parody video is a video that takes another song and makes fun of it, or makes fun out of it. A good example can be seen in weird al yankovitch.



 Animation:
  Animation videos are videos done in a animated style, unlike the aforementioned live action counterparts. A good example is dirty harry by the gorrilaz.

Constructing the advert

Constructing the advert

Constructing the advert was a long process that we found quite difficult. This was because we had very limited Photoshop skills, to fix this we needed to go back to it multiple times in order to get it to a reasonable standard and learn how to use Photoshop on the Macs. We think we've gotten better at using it, though we're still better on the PC's

To get inspiration for my magazine advert I looked at real adverts and the adverts from previous year groups. I saw that all of the adverts featured a qr code and a website, which mine did not so it looked unprofessional.
To make the advert better me and my group went and took some group photos for the main advert image, we then removed the background and placed the image onto a backdrop that matched the theme of the song. I then created a qr code and added a website to make it look like a REAL advert. However due to low production values, and an out of place background, (A road high shot), it still looks currently vastly subpar to an actual picture

Overall I feel that the magazine advert is okay. The band shot shows that the band doesn't take itself too seriously in contrast the background shows that the song covers a serious topic. There is an iTunes advertisement, QR code and a website link. If i were to do it again I would use a better font and maybe use a better band shot just to give it the "extra" bit of professionalism.

I would make the website a little smaller, as well as a change in font to be less obtrusive.

Audience research

We did a surveymonkey survey, getting people to look at our rough and final cut giving opinions on what they liked and what we should improve.

Editing the music video.

   

Editing the music video

Editing the music video was a long and tedious process. This was because we had to have so many cuts in order to fit the pacing of our song. This was okay it was just our lack of shots that made it difficult to stick to this fast pacing, because of this you do see some repeated shots in the finished products but we got away with it a little bit due to the repeated shots being mainly band room footage so it still looks natural.

Below is a photo of our chief editor doing the work.

When editing the video we had a play around with transitions and video effects to try and make our footage look a little more interesting, however when showing this to a small audience nobody liked the transitions and it looked as if it slowed down the pace of the editing whilst the some was very fast paced. We therefor decided that in our final piece we would have no video transitions or effects at all, this made our music video look a lot faster and more convincing as a music video.

Whilst editing our video we got a lot better at using the editing software which made the video look a lot smoother, this is because I learnt how to use all of the things that Adobe Premier Pro had to offer.
As a result we felt that the music video is very good and is the best product that I have made including last years thriller.

Overall I feel that our final product was very good, this is down to good shots and good editing. The music video would have been a lot better if we had more shot variation however this was not possible due to camera issues when filming and lack of time. If we had more time our final product could have been even better with a wide range of locations and more creativity, this had to be limited to to time and location constraints.

The video editing software that we used was Adobe Premier Pro as we were better as using it than final cut, and it's more practical as we had to hope our macs were free, whereas with the windows PC we could go on any free computer and continue.

Filming the music video

Filing the music video was a difficult and time consuming process. this was because it is hard to create a good music video that includes key conventions. We also had to overcome things such as weather and lighting difficulties as well as travelling to locations at a convenient time for everyone.

We also had to take in consideration how congested the place was as we didn't want random members of the public in our shots. Another difficulty was transporting the camera equipment, as we were travelling on crowded buses it became a nuisance to try and keep things such as the tripod out of peoples was.

   Though the equipment was good, both the camera and the tripod, we ended up needing some more footage, both for more variety and some of our previous shots were unusable. However, this lead to issues of it's own, Namely that the camera ran out of storage, and due to time constraints we had no more time to film. This can show in some points, since we have repeated band room footage. 

  On a less technical level, was the noise level. Due to the various noises of Dagenham, it made it sometimes difficult to lip synch, as it would be hard to hear the lyrics when they started and when they continued after pauses. However, even if the overall footage wasn't great, the lip synching came out pretty well.

Storyboard

These are the posts that make up our storyboard.